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Friday, June 3, 2016

Movie Review: London Has Fallen

London Has Fallen was an impulse watch for me. It wasn’t much on my radar, I hadn’t even seen Olympus Has Fallen (the prequel) but I enjoy a lot of action flicks and so gave it a shot. From that perspective, I enjoyed this movie. The plot was simple, straightforward, and so, easy to follow. There was even a bit of a recap of the previous movie at the beginning of this movie.

Basically, there’s an evil terrorist organization, that attacks London. The U.S. president’s best secret service agent (played by Gerard Butler) is about ready to retire, but because of this incident in London, gets pulled back into action. The fight scenes were entertaining. Far more entertaining than some movies where it appears that only the good guys have good aim, as the bad guys always miss their targets.

The U.S, president, along the with presidents and other such distinguished figures of other countries go to London to for the funeral of the British Prime Minister. This happens to be a trap, where just about every president from every other country gets killed. The U.S. president, with the help of his best agent, makes it out alive, and it’s up to them to lead the counterattack to stop the terrorists.

The movie was also interesting because it gave the villains more meaning to their actions beyond simply being evil, wanting to crush the weak or anyone who thought differently than them. Their families had died in a previous drone attack that targeted one of the bad guys from the previous film, on the day of one young woman’s marriage no less. The villains were seeking revenge for what they saw as a just cause.

The chase scenes were entertaining to watch, as were the fight scenes. The main thing that was hard for my suspension of disbelief was watching Gerard Butler play an american with an american accent. I just haven’t watched many or any of his previous work, and I’m only familiar seeing him in interviews, so hearing him with the accent was a little strange especially at first. It was also pretty funny how this was one of those movies where the shining light was on the Americans mostly, compared to any other nation and despite most of the movie taking place off U.S. soil. But, I don't fault the movie for that. I just don't take it too seriously and I see it as a bit of machismo.

This was a simple, fun movie to watch. Not a lot of heavy themes, but that's to be expected. I'd give this movie 3.75 out of 5 stars.